My new iguana is 4 yrs old. I've had him for a week. He's doing OK attitude wise. But he's not eating. The rescue said they had him for a month. He's very thin. Should have basking shelves up this weekend. Cage is 10x6 but only 5 ft high. Temp @85 during day 75 at night. He sometimes sits under the basking light on the floor. Misted a few times a day with a 30 daily soak/potty time. Any advice helpful. Been a long time since I've had an iguana. PS why are they no longer selling lights with safety grills?

I am very happy at the size of he habitat. From your description I got the picture of the cage. Lacking space, you oriented the cage horizontally instead of vertically. Horizontal is easy for non-climbing iguanas to adapt to and live in, and your iguana will be better off with more floor space so he can get exercise. On this forum it was concluded that gravid females who had to climb down to defecate or to eat/dink are much more likely to have sucessful eggings, because they get exercise.

Make sure his habitat has a warm end and a cool end. Warm end 95-100F, cool zone as close to 80 as you can get. Your ig can sense the het n his back, and his body will tell him how high a temp he wants to be in. If he needs a lower maximum heat, he will just settle down a little farther from the center of the hot zone. Place the heating and UVB on the far side of he hab. Normally the natural un-enhanced warmth at the cool end is at least 85F at all times, if the hab is not made with mesh.

If it is a mesh hab, you need to set up a thermostat at each heat zone to keep their temperatures at the right level. This hot-cool thing is a must-have for healthy iguanas, for reasons I can't explain here.

Mesh saves money in construction, but it requires more technology to make it habitable by iguanas, which are extremely climate-sensitive.

Have you thought about putting one or two cool-mist humidifiers in the cage?

A thermostat is what I have to recommend, unless you are always nearby to plug in and unplug lights to raise and lower the heat.

Thermostats automatically adjust the power going to a heating source, keeping the temperature within a few degrees at all times. You still have to adjust the thermostat at night, unless you get one with an automatic night-drop.

This is an inexpensive thermostat, but you have o look it up on Google: R-Zilla Controller Temperature 1000-Watt Thermostat Pet Reptile Supply Safe New

It's not new and it's not entirely safe. You can make it safer by never using more than 500 watts with this thermostat. 500 watts is plenty, even for a large habitat because you are controlling the heat in a restricted hot zone. But it's affordable, and it's a way out of the heating control problem. There are several other "cheap thermostats" (a Google search term) for you to look at, but AFIK, Zilla has the most to gain by making one that does not melt down.

The "safe" thermostats are solid-state so they don't have physical contacts that touch and un-touch (i.e. make-and-beak). You should look at those too.

For heating at night, you need a CHE (Ceramic Heat Emitter). It just gets hot, shedding no visible light. They cost $25-$30 at retail pet stores, but they do solve the night heat problem. Those dark red and dark blue night-lights are bogus. They burn out often, and their light stresses your ig. He needs darkness at night.

Working this weekend on shelves and climbing stuff so he feels safer. Will get some thermometers with next weeks pay. Am using an old one I had around the house right now. He is in an open/wire cage. I have thought about a humidifier. Am worried about mold.

In an open cage like that, mold is not a worry. I've never even heard of mold in a solid enclosure, because it's so hard to keep the humidity above 50 to 60 percent, when it's desirable to have 80% relative humidity. IMO use a cool-mist humidifier sold at your local Rite-Aid. Aim the droplet stream at him. Warm-steam humidifiers can burn your iguana unless you get very good ideas about how to keep him from getting in the humidifier's steam output.

He might be drinking during his tubbing sessions. I found one of my igs doing that when he first entered the water. He would move the front end of his body around like he was checking out the tub, but then I saw he was putting his lower jaw at the water's surface, drinking and making slurping sounds.

Iguanas can lock their toe-tips at 90 degrees to the toe, helping it grab and hold bark and branches it jumps to. With the grills, he's far better off without them because he can jump up and grab the gill, and pull himself up to spread out over it. They get black third degree belly burns from that. It happened to one of my first iguanas.

Without a grill, they can still jump up to try to grab the hood, but can't hold onto it. I've seen my igs jump up and slide off those aluminum hoods.

The usual reason for them trying to get close to the light is that they are too cool, and their bodies are demanding a 95F to 100F basking cycle. Providing the basking region in heir habitat, in my case, stopped the light-jumping behavior. But they still need the cool zone, at about 80-85F.

He's not eating because of prolonged Relocation Stress. As long as he remains healthy despite his thinness, he will start eating once he gets a bit more used to the sights, sounds, and smells of his new residence. Iguanas hate change. Try to not walk around near him, and don't give him your full face, which they recognize as a predator's stare.

He should see a good vet in case he is dehydrated. Dehydration is caused by not eating, because their food is so high in water. They don't naturally drink from standing water to counter their 'thirst', if they actually do have that sensation. In the wild, when it rains, iguanas suck hard on the water that's running down the bark of trees. That's a hard thing to duplicate in captivity.